Unlike many second-degree computer science students, ENGL 301 is not a mandatory course for me but I decided to take this course because I learned the importance of technical writing skills through experience while working for software companies. ENGL 301 provided an excellent learning opportunity to improve my technical writing skills and learn writing techniques that can make my writing more convincing and professional.

It was enjoyable to review my previous work and see what I have learned throughout this course. Since most of my undergraduate degree did not involve writing reflections, blogs, and memos, I consistently struggled to come up with words and ideas. In computer science, it is strongly emphasized to write code as simple as possible, and using fancy and unnecessary words is strongly discouraged. Also, I struggled to use the “YOU” attitude since this conflicted with what I learned from computer science courses. The field of computer science is extremely direct and people tend to be extremely detailed and organized. When coding, a single typo can cost millions of dollars for a company and therefore, it is crucial to be extremely explicit on the requirement and specifications. This inevitably makes it difficult to use the “YOU” attitude and it’s common for people working in this field to sound rude and unprofessional. However, I believe the “YOU” attribute is an extremely important skill in the workplace and a skill anyone should try to master.

My strength is organization skills and attention to detail. As a computer science student, I became accustomed to being organized and sensitive to detail, and these skills are represented throughout the course. Also, as I have a strong background in technology I was able to easily navigate through the website and create a table using HTML.

The skills I learned from ENGL 301 could be used to build a stronger resume, cover letter, and letter for requesting a reference. The “YOU” attitude is a powerful technique that could help me to communicate effectively in a professional setting and satisfy my need. As I will be working as a software engineer, I will be responsible to write technical documents and communicate with other programmers. Although I still have a lot of room to improve my technical skills, this course was an excellent starting point.

Introduction

A Web Folio is a portfolio hosted online that highlights skills, goals, and achievements for a specific audience. This Web Folio is intended for both ENGL 301 students and instructors and consists of six major components: a homepage, a biography, a blog page, an application package for a software developer position at Microsoft, a resume, and the best nine works throughout the course. The sections contain images, hyperlinks, and pdf documents.

HomePage

The homepage is like a cover of a book and it should attract the reader to continue reading the Web Folio. The homepage should also describe the intention of the Web Folio and provide navigation readers can reference. A friendly tone is used with a profile picture as an attempt to connect with the readers. A profile is a strong tool to present yourself as a “personal brand”.

Biography

The biography includes educational background, interest, experience, and future goals that relate to the course. I included a profile photo to attract the readers and added the Amazon logo to spark interest.

Blog

The blog contains reflections on Units 1,2, and 3, this document, and a self-assessment reflection. The reflections describe the projects, the process, and my reflection. It was a great learning experience to review and summarize the work.

Application Package

The application package includes a resume, cover letter, three letters requesting references, and a LinkedIn profile. The application is intended for a Software Developer II position at Microsoft, which is a leading technology company that creates software and electronics. I never experienced writing a letter requesting a reference so it was a valuable and exciting experience.

Resume

The resume includes the highlights of skills, education, and experience. I enjoyed reading over my old resume and correcting the mistakes.

Best Works

The best work contains nine of the best works throughout the course that is revised based on the instructor’s feedback. It contains the three definition assignment and its peer review, formal report proposal and survey, memo with “YOU” attitude, complain letter, formal report, and more.  Each sections contains a summary of the assignment and my reflection.

Conclusion

Overall, I enjoyed creating and designing the Web Folio. This experience can help to build my official website that I will expand during the summer and use many of the sections for reference.

Introduction

Unit 3 involved writing a formal report draft and a peer review of a formal draft of another student in ENGL301. The formal report draft was composed of researching, organizing, and writing,

Formal Report Draft

Overall, the formal report draft was the hardest assignment in this course. It involved sophisticated researching and organizing before the writing. However, I was able to learn how to properly research and organize to write an effective report.

Researching

I greatly underestimated how much work is required to do research and gather data. Constructing a survey is much harder than I anticipated and required a lot of planning and thought. While developing the survey I realized that I have not thoroughly thought about what I am trying to measure and what specific approach I am going to take. I did already have a general plan and idea of the survey but I did not expect the specific details to develop the survey would be that difficult. For example, when asking about “How many years of experience should developers in our lab have?”, at first it seemed to be a simple question so I constructed multiple choice answers of 1 year, 2 years, 3year, and 4year+. It became evident that this is a poorly constructed survey question because almost every developer in the lab has less than 1 year of experience. Furthermore, I started to question the format of the answers. Could the text box be better? How about range? What is easier to understand? In the end, I decided to use a multiple-choice answer that has a smaller range (e.g. no experience, less than 6 months, between 6 months and 1 year, more than 1 year). The interview question was informative since I was able to learn about things that are not directly asked in the survey.

Organizing

Organizing the time and work required a great amount of effort. I initially did not have a strong plan and therefore struggled to collect all the data I needed in my formal report. Due to my poor planning, I had to ask some developers in the lab to the survey again with better questions. If I would do this project again, I would spend more time developing survey and interview questions, and start early on collecting data.

Writing

The writing section allowed me to state the background, address the problem, and the solution. All the data collected significantly supported my argument with figures, survey questions, and interview questions.

Peer Review

By reading Kelly’s draft of the formal report I had an opportunity to learn about how data can be effectively used to strengthen the argument. She did an excellent job organizing the sections and constructing a smooth flow of the writing. I especially liked the introduction explaining the background and the problem. The two sections were strongly supported by data through thorough research and convinced me to be serious about the topic. The solution section provided two alternatives and was extremely informative. Furthermore, by reviewing Kelly’s report I was able to review some writing techniques such as “You” and avoiding the negatives technique.

Conclusion

Although unit 3 was the hardest so far, I was able to improve my writing skill along with my research and planning skills. I learned that writing a big report takes large time and effort in research, planning, and organization. The peer review was an excellent opportunity to refine my writing skills and learn from other member of the team. Overall, I am satisfied of my work and grateful for this opportunity.

Memorandum – Formal Report Draft

Introduction

Unit 2 is composed of a research proposal for the formal report, peer review of the research proposal, networking and resume building, and formal report outline and progress report. These assignments allowed me to further improve my technical writing skills.

LinkedIn

Although I already had a LinkedIn profile for several years, I learned that there was still room for improvement while researching for 10 tips on making the LinkedIn profile. I learned that headline is used as a professional brand and writing a professional summary to attract potential recruiters. Before this assignment, I did not think about the viewpoint of the audience and did not realize the importance of gaining the reader’s attention. Recruiters are busy people with limited time so it is crucial to catch the reader’s attention with a compelling headline, professional brand, and concise and interesting summary.

Formal Report

The formal report was a great assignment to test and improve my technical writing skills. The planning and writing the research proposal was far more difficult than I expected and provided me with an opportunity to find areas for improvement. Before writing the research proposal I thought I had the plan mostly figured out. However, as I was writing the specific details, I struggled to come up with ideas that seemed obvious before. Also, I learned how to write concise and highly structured documents by reading the textbook and my peers’ posts. The most interesting and useful concept I learned was the avoidance of negative phrases. Although it looked unnecessary at first, I quickly realized that the positive phrases are much more professional and more pleasant to read. Overall, I really enjoyed the assignments and learned a lot about technical writing.

Peer Review

I always thought there were a lot of improvements to be made in my technical writing skill so I frequently avoided doing peer reviews for other people. However, I was surprised to learn that peer review not only allows me to learn from others but also reflect back on my own writing styles. Through careful reading and analysis, I learned my strength and weakness, and gain confidence in my writing skills. I really enjoyed reading and editing Leo’s research proposal and learned a lot from his document.

Conclusion

Overall, I am satisfied with my work and excited to further learn about technical writing through units 3 and 4.

Original Writing

For assignment 1:3 I wanted to write something I was interested in and is relatively complex. Initially, I wanted to write about machine learning but I realized it might be too technical for an audience without any technical background. So I decided on object-oriented programming, which is still technical but much better than machine learning. For the “analysis of parts” section, I wanted to divide the topic into four object-oriented principles but I quickly realized that the concepts are too technical and are only suitable for an audience with some technical background in object-oriented programming. Therefore, I wrote about the basic components of the definition and made it more friendly for the non-technical audience. I really liked the structure of writing many definitions, starting from easiest and with a gradual increase in depth. I especially found the parenthetical definition to be very informative as a reader.

Peer Review Process

Through the peer review process, I was able to learn from the strength of my partner’s definition and understand my weaknesses. Ben did an excellent job breaking down the components of the definition and explaining from the smallest component to the definition. The visuals presented early helped me understand the general idea of the definition before reading. As I was the reader/audience for the definition, I was also able to strengthen my writing skills by thinking from the reader’s perspective. Also, I found the topic of “binary search tree” to be too technical to audience without any technical background. For such term, there has to be some basic knowledge on data structure and programming, so I struggled to find a solution other than explaining the background knowledge before the explanation of the definition, which is going to be lengthy. Therefore, I assumed the reader has some basic knowledge of programming and data structure when giving the feedback.

Editing Process

Ben made very good points about placing visuals early in the definition and using less technical words for non-technical readers. I took his feedback and added an extra visual under sentence definition and added placed the visual examples above some sections. I believe this is easier to understand for the readers since the concepts are technical. Also, as Ben suggested, I removed some technical terms that could confuse the readers without a technical background.

Revised Peer Review: Jake Moh’s Expanded Definition of “Object Oriented Programming”

Revised Definitions of “Object Oriented Programming”

To: Ben Maxfield

From: Jake Moh

Subject: Re: ENGL 301 Writing Team Invitation

Dear Ben,

Thank you for your invitation to join your team. I am excited to join your team and I formally accept your offer as a technical writer of your team.

From reading your invitation and biography, I am impressed you worked as the lead of business development at a seed-stage start-up. I admire and agree with your mindset to “drop everything” and pursue your interest. Also, as a loyal player of League of Legends,  I would love to talk more about it!

I look forward to working with you.

Best,

Jake

To: Leo Kim

From: Jake Moh

Subject: Re: ENGL 301 Writing Team Invitation

Dear Leo,

Thank you for your invitation to join your team. I am excited to join your team and I formally accept your offer as a technical writer of your team.

From reading your invitation and biography, I respect your courage and perseverance to come to Canada and as a former newcomer to Canada, I can relate to the gravity of your decision. I admire the positive contributions you made to help private business owners during the COVID-19 pandemic and I would love to hear more about it. Finally, I believe your strong work ethic and wide range of work experience will bring a positive influence in the team.

I look forward to working with you.

Best,

Jake

To: Kelly Kim

From: Jake Moh

Subject: Re: ENGL 301 Writing Team Invitation

Dear Kelly,

Thank you for your invitation to join your team. I am excited to join your team and I formally accept your offer as a technical writer of your team.

From reading your invitation and biography, I believe you have strong writing and leadership skills from your background in finance with years of work experience. I also did my first degree at the University of Toronto and it is always exciting to see someone who has a similar background as me. I especially like your ambition for success and your focus on relationships in the team.

I look forward to working with you.

Best,

Jake

To: Dr. Erika Paterson, ENGL301 99C Instructor

From: Jake Moh, ENGL301 99C Student

Date: Jan 20, 2022

Subject: Application Letter Submission

As Lesson 1:2, I completed the application letter.

This application letter has contents as below:

– Background, experience and interest

– Learning philosophy

– Strengths and weaknesses

– Contact

Attached to this letter is a docx file of the application letter.

Enclosure: 301 Jake Moh Application Letter

Team Found

3579 Dunbar Street West

Vancouver, BC V6N 2Y9

January 19, 2022

ENG 301 99C
University of British Columbia
2329 West Mall
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4

Subject: Technical Writer with Your Writing Team

Dear ENGL301 peers:

What if I told you I am the perfect partner to work with your team? I have gained a wide range of experience and skills while working as a software developer in Amazon and as a technical lead and manager of Visual Cognition Lab in UBC. I am confident to say I will add significant value to your team by incorporating excellent leadership and technical writing skills. I am currently a second degree 4th year student with a major in computer science at UBC and have a deep interest in distributed systems, internet networking, and cloud computing. I had an internship with SAP and AWS where I had an opportunity to learn about software development, write technical documents, and tackle challenging problems. I am also a manager and technical lead for a coding team of Visual Cognition Lab at UBC, where I am responsible for organizing the team and designing software architecture.

With several practical experiences in technical writing from two computer science directed-studies courses and 16 months of co-op, I am capable of writing clear and concise documents of my projects. I always strive to improve my skills, always welcome feedback and am not afraid to take risks. However, this also means that I may venture too far when taking risks as I believe it is a necessity for progress, but may cause some uncertainty.

As students, it is common to lose the excitement and joy of learning with overwhelming lectures and assignments. But learning is one of the most enjoyable things one can experience and at the end of the day, you get to keep all the knowledge you gained from that course (Tuum Est).

Thank you for reading and I look forward to hearing from you. Please contact me by commenting on this post or email me at mohjeehw@student.ubc.ca.

Best,

Jake Moh

301 Jake Moh Application Letter

If above link does not work please use:
https://blogs.ubc.ca/jakemoh/files/2022/01/301-Jake-Moh-Application-Letter.docx